In Case You Were Wondering If You Should Write it Down

As students work on personal essays over the next few weeks, we consider what we might pass on. We offer our life experience to others--the pain, the beauty, the joy, the despair--to provide insight.

Mary Pipher explains that "with personal essays, we turn our own lives into teachable moments for others."

Why shouldn't we do this work? Why shouldn't this become part of our spiritual practice, as important as prayer or reading the Bible or worship?

I consider how in Psalm 78:3-5, the poet writes:

Things we have heard and known,
    things our ancestors have told us.
We will not hide them from their descendants;
    we will tell the next generation
the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord,
    his power, and the wonders he has done.

Or in Psalm 102:18, we know the reason for writing it down:

 Let this be written for a future generation,    that a people not yet created may praise the Lord.

What if we decided we will not hide our stories? What if we wrote down the deeds, the power, and the wonders God has accomplished and displayed in our own lives (because they were never just for us alone anyway)?

We will go and write, so it can be an everlasting witness.